GMDC advances alumina plant tenders for the second time

Gujarat government owned Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC) has extended the deadline to submit Expression of Interest (EoI) for its 1 million tonne per year (mtpy) alumina refinery and 0.5 mtpy aluminium smelter by another week. The last date for the submission now stands at November 29, 2010.

A company official who wished not to be quoted said, "The company has decided to extend the deadline for the EoIs by another week as enough "competition" wasn't there." The official confirmed that GMDC, by far, has recieved six bids to partner the company for the white metal plant. Calls and messages to VS Gadhvi, managing director, GMDC went unanswered.This is not the first time that the company has extended the deadline for the project, the original date for submission of the EoIs was November 11 which was later pushed to November 22 citing festive season, and now, to November 29.

Of the six companies that have shown their interest in the project, the major ones are JSW Aluminium, National Aluminium Company (Nalco), Aluchem (USA) and a Dubai based aluminium company.

The total cost of the project is estimated to be around Rs10,000 crore and entire bauxite for producing alumina will be provided by GMDC from its own mines in Kutch.